4 ms·

My Hardest Bug Ever (2013)

60 points by Davesjoshin 9y ago

xatan_dank 9y ago
This is a great article. I remember reading this a few years ago during my undergrad- my big takeaway from it was that sometimes you will encounter bugs which you can't solve alone. I always assumed any error I came across was my fault, but that's not good (it's also not good to just assume it's someone else's). Fixing problems in an organization is often a team effort that requires good communication and incentive for improvement- not just one genius coder that knows the whole source code.
balls187 9y ago
This is from 2013, and has been posted nearly a half dozen times now: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=http:%2F%2Fwww.gamasutra.com%2Fblogs%2FDaveBaggett%2F20131031%2F203788%2FMy_Hardest_Bug_Ever.php&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=http:%2F%2Fwww.gamasutra.com%2...
- flashm 9y ago
  ...? Nearly half a dozen? So five? In four years. It's still interesting, and I don't suppose many people are searching for it so what's the issue with it being posted again?
js2 9y ago
Reminds me of the slightly more recent (2015) "The Discovery of Apache ZooKeeper’s Poison Packet": https://www.pagerduty.com/blog/the-discovery-of-apache-zookeepers-poison-packet https://www.pagerduty.com/blog/the-discovery-of-apache-zooke...
yomly 9y ago
Anyone a bit more savvy on hardware able to shed a bit more light on this? The following line tickles my fancy... > This is the only time in my entire programming life that I've debugged a problem caused by quantum mechanics.
- nategri 9y ago
  I've got a PhD in physics and I have no idea what he's talking about here. Seems like the mainboard layout had issues at higher frequencies which is easily a 100% classical electromagnetism problem. Inductance, impedance and what have you. As another commenter alluded, its only 'quantum' in the sense that all semiconductor behavior is. I think this is another case where 'quantum' is confused with 'apparently spooky.'
  - heavenlyblue 9y ago
    Neither is it entirely clear to me, but this could be a pun related to him saying: > bits to get dropped... and the data lost... and the card corrupted. So as to say that's the Schrodinger's bug that causes several issues at the same time.

60 points by Davesjoshin 9y ago

This is a great article. I remember reading this a few years ago during my undergrad- my big takeaway from it was that sometimes you will encounter bugs which you can't solve alone. I always assumed any error I came across was my fault, but that's not good (it's also not good to just assume it's someone else's). Fixing problems in an organization is often a team effort that requires good communication and incentive for improvement- not just one genius coder that knows the whole source code.

balls187 9y ago

This is from 2013, and has been posted nearly a half dozen times now: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=http:%2F%2Fwww.gamasutra.com%2Fblogs%2FDaveBaggett%2F20131031%2F203788%2FMy_Hardest_Bug_Ever.php&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=http:%2F%2Fwww.gamasutra.com%2...

flashm 9y ago
...? Nearly half a dozen? So five? In four years. It's still interesting, and I don't suppose many people are searching for it so what's the issue with it being posted again?

js2 9y ago

Reminds me of the slightly more recent (2015) "The Discovery of Apache ZooKeeper’s Poison Packet": https://www.pagerduty.com/blog/the-discovery-of-apache-zookeepers-poison-packet https://www.pagerduty.com/blog/the-discovery-of-apache-zooke...

yomly 9y ago

Anyone a bit more savvy on hardware able to shed a bit more light on this? The following line tickles my fancy... > This is the only time in my entire programming life that I've debugged a problem caused by quantum mechanics.

nategri 9y ago
I've got a PhD in physics and I have no idea what he's talking about here. Seems like the mainboard layout had issues at higher frequencies which is easily a 100% classical electromagnetism problem. Inductance, impedance and what have you. As another commenter alluded, its only 'quantum' in the sense that all semiconductor behavior is. I think this is another case where 'quantum' is confused with 'apparently spooky.'
- heavenlyblue 9y ago
  Neither is it entirely clear to me, but this could be a pun related to him saying: > bits to get dropped... and the data lost... and the card corrupted. So as to say that's the Schrodinger's bug that causes several issues at the same time.